he sick and to receive strangers.
Specifications called for twenty-five beds for fifty persons (which was
in accord with custom in public institutions); board partitions between
the beds; five conveniently placed chimneys; and windows enough to
provide ample fresh air.

The Company repeatedly recommended and urged the construction of these
guest houses not only as a retreat for the sick but also as a measure
to prevent illness among the newcomers. In addition, the guest houses,
if they had been built, would have saved the old settlers from being
exposed to the diseases of the new arrivals who were taken into private
homes. The colonists always had some excuse for delaying construction,
and the Company in 1621 entreated to the effect that it could not "but
apprehend with great grief the sufferings of these multitudes at their
first landing for want of guest houses where in they might have a while
sheltered themselves from the injuries of the air in the cold season."

That the London Company should have had the Henrico hospital built
during its administration and made plans for the guest houses can be
explained by the situation existing during the earlier days of the
colony. The Company, engaged in a commercial venture and realizing by
its own statement that "in the health of the people consisteth the very
life, strength, increase and prosperity of the whole general colony,"
had sufficient reason to shelter and care for the colonists. Also,
during the early days the number of incoming colonists was high
relative to the number settled and with lodging to give or to let. The
Company, in addition, knew that new arrivals fell victim most easily to
seasoning and other maladies, and needed protection from the elements.
Finally, the Company had to fill the void created by the absence of
religious orders which, during prior European colonization and
occupation of distant lands, had provided shelter and care. These
hospitals are no longer mentioned after the dissolution of the London
Company, nor were any other comparable measures taken during the
century to institutionalize care for the sick.

SURGICAL PRACTICE

Much has been made of the lower status held by the surgeon as compared
with that of the physician--during the seventeenth century. On the
continent and in England, at this period, membership in separate guilds
in part distinguished doctor and surgeon; in England, after 1540 and
until 1745, surgeons held common membe